On August 6 2014, Google announced that it is starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal within the search results.

While on the face of it, this might not seem like big news, it's another instance of Google using its influence to put pressure on websites to conform to what it considers best practice.

Google has said that right now HTTPS is a very lightweight signal which will affect less than 1% of search queries globally, but it has stated that this may change over time as Google encourages all site owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS.

As a result of this, we anticipate that secure and encrypted connections will become the norm for all websites in the future.